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Donald Trump suggests U.S. is freezing out Canada in NAFTA talks

WASHINGTON—U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Thursday that the U.S. is pointedly freezing Canada out of North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations.

Trump’s negotiators have been meeting with Mexican negotiators in Washington over the past two weeks. Senior officials from all three countries have said the U.S. has chosen the two-way talks for temporary practical reasons, not to send a message to Canada.

U.S. President Donald Trump told a televised meeting of his cabinet Thursday that the U.S. is “not negotiating with Canada right now” in ongoing talks about the North American Free Trade Agreement. “We’ll see how that works out. It’ll only work out to our favour,” he added. (Oliver Contreras / GETTY IMAGES)

“We’re not negotiating with Canada right now. Their tariffs are too high, their barriers are too strong, so we’re not even talking to them right now,” Trump said at a televised cabinet meeting. “We’ll see how that works out. It’ll only work out to our favour.”

Adam Austen, spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, disputed Trump’s claim that the U.S. is not talking to Canada at all.

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“Minister Freeland, Ambassador (David) MacNaughton and the Canadian negotiating team are in regular contact with their counterparts and we look forward to continuing these important discussions in the coming weeks,” Austen said.

Austen would not provide specifics about recent communication.

Trump’s explanation for Canada’s exclusion differed from the one offered two weeks ago by one of his top officials. U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in late July that the administration was focusing on Mexico because there were more difficult issues to resolve with Mexico than there were with Canada.

“Mexico is, intellectually, the more complicated of the two, so if we can solve that, we should be able to fill in with Canada,” Ross said.

Trump also complained Thursday about Canadian wood exports, saying, “Canada is charging us a lot of money to bring their timber down into our country. It’s so ridiculous.” Trump has imposed tariffs on Canadian softwood, raising the price for Americans.

Trump complained repeatedly about Canada’s bargaining tactics even before he became irked with Trudeau, calling Canada “brutal,” “very spoiled” and “very difficult.” He wrote on Twitter on Friday: “Deal with Mexico is coming along nicely. Autoworkers and farmers must be taken care of or there will be no deal. New President of Mexico has been an absolute gentleman. Canada must wait. Their Tariffs and Trade Barriers are far too high. Will tax cars if we can’t make a deal!”

A U.S. deal with Mexico would be a kind of sub-deal that would be folded into the larger NAFTA negotiations. Despite Trump’s musings about splitting up NAFTA itself into two separate trade pacts, U.S. officials continue to work toward an updated three-way accord.

Mexican officials have said that they are not discussing the remaining issues on which Canada has major disagreements with the U.S. Those include U.S. proposals for dramatic changes to how trade disputes are resolved and for a “sunset clause” that would automatically terminate the agreement in five years if all three countries did not agree to it again.

U.S. reports have suggested that the U.S. and Mexico are closing in on a sub-deal, though Mexico’s economy minister said Wednesday that they may not get it done by the end of August. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told Trump on Thursday that he hoped for a breakthrough in the next “several days,” but he said there were difficult issues remaining.

Trump advised him not to make a deal if there was not a true breakthrough. He said NAFTA is “lousy” and the U.S. has “much better alternatives than that.” Lighthizer countered that the best alternative is probably to make a good deal, to which Trump said, “OK.”

Canadian officials have said Canada will rejoin the talks as soon as the U.S. resolves its issues with Mexico. And they have said that they are supportive of the U.S.-Mexico talks, since they view the automotive issue as the key to a deal.

“There are still some bilateral issues between Canada and the U.S. and between the U.S. and Mexico that need to be resolved outside of autos, but if the auto thing gets resolved then I think we’re well on our way to a successful modernization,” MacNaughton told BNN Bloomberg last week.

Daniel Dale is the Star’s Washington bureau chief. He covers U.S. politics and current affairs. Follow him on Twitter: @ddale8

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